MoMA's Senior Design & Architecture Curator talks guns, rejection, punk rock, sexism, and smoking

It shouldn’t be entirely surprising that Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator at MoMA for Architecture and Design, was into punk rock in her twenties. She says the scene wasn’t hard core in Italy. She dipped her toes, without becoming subsumed by the genre, which is in part, what she does daily, as she travels the world over to assess the multiple ways, designers, architects, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs, and multi-disciplinary hyphenates are impacting culture.

We spoke about the creativity required in her job. A curator must deftly serve as a bridge between those who fund resources and the artists themselves. Am I allowed to call designers artists, when so many strive to create commercial enterprises? In our interview, which was recorded live at Joe’s Pub, we touch on how Antonelli decides which products MOMA highlights and why.

You’ll learn in our interview how much her integrity, unique artistic sensibility, whimsy, discipline, and experience matter. It’s why Antonelli is less concerned with...